FOREVER the bit part player, Rosie Cavaliero is blossoming as leading lady in the hit TV drama Prey.

As female TV detectives go, Susan Reinhardt has to be one of the most oddball. She’s a grumpy, obsessive, awkward comfort eater who used to stalk her ex-husband and wouldn’t be seen dead in make-up. But the character is drawing in ITV viewers by their millions and has changed the 25-year acting career of Rosie Cavaliero.

Before she landed the role, the 47 year old had accepted her lot as a support actress and sitcom wife, appearing in shows such as Hunderby, Saxondale, Little Dorrit, and Jam And Jerusalem. Now for the first time in her life, she is playing the lead in the highly rated police drama and loving it.

The likes of me don’t normally get this kind of role. I don’t mean that in a humble way

Rosie Cavaliero

“It’s wonderful to have a nice juicy lead part,” says Rosie. “The likes of me don’t normally get this kind of role. I don’t mean that in a humble way. It’s because I am a character actor, so I’m often playing the supporting role, and a lot of it has been in comedy. I’ve had some fantastic roles before, but nothing like this.”

On her first day on set, Rosie was warned that apart from having her hair brushed, any glamorous touches were completely banned.

“The make-up woman said to me, ‘I’m not really supposed to let you wear any make-up, but how about a bit of mascara?’ I was just holding up the mascara stick to my eye when the director walked in as though he was telepathic and said: ‘What are you doing? No! No!’ The only make-up we are allowed is blood!!’” she laughs.

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Rosie with John Simm, her co-star in the first series of Prey

“Susan is quite low-key, loves her job and isn’t particularly sociable or charming. And she certainly doesn’t mince her words! She is also pretty miffed that after she was in charge as an acting Detective Chief Inspector, she is now back to being simply a sergeant.

“She’s still comfort eating and into Mars bars and chips, which is often the way for people who work long hours and grab food whenever they can. Put it this way: she’s certainly not the type to order a salad when she’s tired. A bit like me…” she jokes.

After Susan Reinhardt made her debut in series one of Prey, Rosie wondered if she’d seen the back of the character.

“You never know how these things are going to go. Obviously, the first series went down really well and there was a great reaction. But I wasn’t sure they’d want to do more episodes with just me.

I knew there was so much further Susan could go as a detective, but I wondered if she would be enough of a pull without someone like John Simm.”

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'I’ve had some fantastic roles before, but nothing like this'

Instead, Simm, her co-star in series one, has been replaced by his Life On Mars buddy Philip Glenister.

“As you can imagine, he was hilarious to work with,” says Rosie, who spent most of the weeks of filming in action-packed car-chase scenes. So much so that she put her neck out after performing a crash several times.

After the first series, during which Susan spent hours parked outside her ex-husband’s house watching him through the window, her love life has taken on a slightly rosier glow, with an awkward marriage proposal in the first episode.

“She’s not stalking her ex any more. For once she is in a more conventional relationship with a doctor called Phil. Although you get the impression she is a bit of a commitment-phobe,” says Rosie.

In real life, the actress lives with her landscape garden designer partner Robin and their seven-year-old son Leo in a Wiltshire village. Around the same time as Prey airs, she will be appearing in the comedy Hunderby and as a mad professor in The Further Adventures Of Professor Branestawm with Harry Hill.

“People often do a double take when they see me in the street, but they don’t know where they’ve seen me. Last week I was asked if I worked for the NHS,” says Rosie.

Born in Brazil, when her father worked for the British Council, she later lived in Rome before she and her large family – three sisters and a brother – settled in Kent.

“My first role was when I was about six, playing Hansel and Gretel’s mother. Even then I was in a supporting role.

“When I was at drama school, a teacher said to me, ‘It’s not going to happen for you quickly.’ He actually said, ‘You are going to grow into your face!’ and I was thinking, ‘OK thanks!’ But he added that my career would probably take off later in life and he was right. It’s a good time for me. I feel I’ve finally come into my own.”